The Owl’s Right Eye (2019) | Hacker News Reader

The Owl’s Right Eye (2019)

unintendedconsequenc.es

119 pointspaulorlando38 comments

This is a wonderfully presented article of an important aspect of the impact of symbolism in culture. This reminds me of the modified okay symbol which makes a W shape co-opted by white supremacists. Because of its generally innocuous nature, even people who aren't white supremacists will defend politician's use of it as their opponents imagination. These sorts of symbols, and our understanding them, are a front in the ongoing epistemological war.

It's all about context. The symbol has legitimate uses. I do not care that white supremacists use it, as I have no intention of letting white supremacists dictate what symbols I use.

Kind of like the Swatstika. People (often American) freak out about historical uses of the symbol by Asian cultures, due to ignorance of the Swatstika predating the 3rd Reich. The Nazis appropriation and modification of the symbol doesn’t mean that the swatstika is inherently bad, or that it’s only use is in the service of nazisim.

The okay symbol is unique in that it was chosen to be as innocuous as possible by 4chan trolls in order to make their ideological opponents crack down on normal behaviour.

Ignoring trolls is a time-honoured and effective response to them, and would have been pretty effective in this case.

There was a whole series of campaigns after the pepe the frog thing where 4chan/8chan picked random innocuous shit and decided that they would try to convince journalists that it had something to do with white supremacy. The OK sign is probably the most successful example. Of course, this ended up forming a hyperstition, where this false belief ended up leading to its own truth-hood, in a limited capacity.

Another notable one was drinking milk, the "logic" being that lactose tolerance is representative of white supremacy

Except that the meme escaped the lulz laboratory and got picked up earnestly by actual white supremacists.

You can argue the intent of any particular politician, in any particular situation.

You can't argue that it's just trolling in the wider world.

Living in SF and interacting with my coworkers and neighbors on a regular basis, I had no idea until just now that using the okay hand gesture is now offensive. How does everyone else stay informed of these societal changes? I don't really browse 4chan and twitter, but I do keenly follow wsj, hn, tc, etc.

EDIT: I'm only commenting on how everyone stays up to date on these shifts in language, so that they can use the right language when communicating.

The OK symbol was just one of the many items designed to twig the left-wing paranoia over "dog whistles." See also "milk and racism." Essentially, people who see racism (or the Red Menace, or whatever) around every corner end up suffering from a kind of pareidolia of symbolism.

The worst thing you can do is to take this kind of thing seriously.

There is a point where many don't get the memo you did however, and it becomes a thing anyway, no matter how ironic it was supposed to be. Ironic racism is still racism.

I dunno, how ominously can one drink a glass of milk? How does it inconvenience people selectively based on race?

The answer is it cannot, not without people doing absolute backflips of contorted reasoning, and that's what it highlights. Drinking milk isn't racism, the worst it can do is emphasize the absolute paranoia of people who cannot stop looking for the devil under every bed.

I know that, and you know that, but other people don't know that. Look at cow tipping, snipe hunting, tide pods... "Everyone" knows it is all BS, and yet...

So drinking that glass of milk selectively inconveniences people on the basis of race how?

Hey man I don't make this shit up, but people buy into it... Even when they too think it is BS even if just to fit in.

You are not answering my question.

How can drinking a glass of milk selectively inconvenience someone on the basis of race? How? Please describe the mechanism.

Hint: It can't. Which means that it isn't racist. Which means that it isn't ironically racist, either. This in turn means that it's just tweaking the noses of the paranoid, not that it is racist.

Your rhetoric is part of the problem. You want me to absolve right wing extremists for some reason. It is absurd, and it's absurdity is part of its mechanism of spread. Your inquiring rhetoric is trying to minimize it as absurdity when the ineffectiveness isn't even the point.

No, the irrationality is part of the problem. I can ask you again and again to describe how this thing might be "racist" and you cannot do so. It is only racist by fiat, as if someone could declare a particular letter of the alphabet racist. That's the absurd bit. I can ask and ask and ask, and you won't answer the question because you cannot.

That's the absurdity.

I'm not sure why you are supporting a racist symbol, or trying to convince me or anyone reading it isn't racist. Either you like to fight very low stakes or you've given into the rhetoric that causes these things to spread (eg tide pods look delicious so I can see why people would want to do it, but it is obviously stupid). I have conceded that I cannot explain it as racist on the surface, but you cannot accept that it is racist in its mechanism of spread as an idea that it could be racist... Which is racist enough for racists.

I am unsure why you are supporting the irrationality of concepts like "milk is racist," or trying to convince me or anyone else reading that it is racist and that this stance is not utterly irrational, as you have no way of supporting it. Either you enjoy struggling over mintuae or you have given your mind over to people who will program you with headlines ("... and why that's a problem."). Remember, you replied to me. You have conceded that you do not have a reasonable stance, but you will stubbornly hold onto it based on some nebulous tautology that it is that way because someone said it is that way ... which is irrational enough for me to reject it.

Only witches support the idea that there are no witches, and we know what to do with witches, don't we? That's the historical precedent for the thought process you're trying to foist upon me. I recollect only a paraphrasing of a routine on how bad propaganda is laughably bad on its surface. It's purpose is not to convince, but to make you admit to yourself you have no reason to believe it, but also realize that you will repeat the propaganda anyway ... or else.

Having asserted to me that milk is racist, you will not be drinking it in the future, or purchasing it, I suppose.

This does not follow. You are continuing to say I shouldn't believe that the racists think it is racist when the racists are saying that they see it as racist. If that is what they say they believe then that is factually what they believe.

That's not what I am arguing in the slightest.

"Wouldn't it be funny and enlightening if we could point out how some people overreact and see monsters in every shadow?" is the whole (milk) of it. There's nothing more to it than that.

You pointing out that overreaction is further propagation.

Propagation of something that isn't racism.

None of the comment you replied to was in the vain of protecting racists. It was about labeling random, unrelated things as racist symbols/acts, then pretending like that's okay to do and to even defend. It's absurd in every sense of the word. First off, you're taking the actions and beliefs of a handful of people (stupid teens mostly in all of these trolled stunts) and applying their "belief" (lame jokes in reality) to an entire demographic. The actions of the few are applied to the many. What you are doing is pretty damn racist within itself. Add in that you want people to alter their normal, everyday actions on the notion of a random group sudden decides, "Hey, this is mine now and everything associated with it is associated with me!" You're also claiming continuing to do said thing and even arguing that they never belonged to said hate group to begin with, makes you one of them. MLk had a thing about judging individuals on their own character, not on the superficial factors of others. That, and you're the one who started the argument in the first place. Don't claim someone is frivolously arguing when you're the one that started it.

This is how racists work though... Make people inadvertently stick up for them.

This is how witches work, they make people do things and try to trick you into believing they don't exist.

I don't think that's a valid retort to what I said. My point is that they make no pretense to argue in good faith.

There's been mainstream coverage of it, including in the WSJ, e.g. https://www.wsj.com/articles/west-point-annapolis-officials-...

I think it is funny that these oh so fringe white nationalists are able to influence society at large on a global scale. I'm starting to think that the way they keep being framed as "fringe" is just a way to try and dismiss their impact on society.

If they really were fringe, they wouldn't be able to set the tone on subjects so immensely as they do.

No, I think the internet as the great equalizer, and need organizations both-sides-ism makes it seem like this, and they love that, but the self proclaimed racists are still a very small group of cowards.

From 2019. The mention of mask bans feels either ominous or quaint in hindsight, I can't quite decide which.

I'll take "ominous" for 1000, Alex.

Year added above. Thanks!

Indeed. One strange bright (?) side of Covid-19's probable persistence in the world for some time, even after successful mass vaccinations in 2021, is that wearing a mask in public for any purpose has become more legitimate almost anywhere in the world. IMO one should not need to justify wearing a mask during any gathering or peaceful protest in public. Pandemic or endemic viruses make this "easier". :-}

The (excellent) manga The Promised Neverland uses of an owl as a symbol of protest as well. One of the main themes of the story is turning a blind eye to injustice, and indeed, one of the owl's eyes (the left eye, in this case) is black.

It's also interesting because they are using a wound as a signifier. Anyone could legitimately have an eye injury requiring such a dressing, but now an innocuous bandage is a show of support. The creativity and ingenuity that has come out of some of these protests has been really inspiring and gives me hope that humanity will always find ways to fight oppression no matter how oppressed they are.

I try to remain optimistic about this stuff. The other comparable are the "blank paper" protests, which also have a long history. Here's an article from the same site: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blank-paper/

The takeaway point at the end resonates strongly: Identity at scale can weaken trust.

The US had proposed a National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) Alex Howard, May 4, 2011:

The NSTIC proposes the creation of an “identity ecosystem” online, “where individuals and organizations will be able to trust each other because they follow agreed upon standards to obtain and authenticate their digital identities.” The strategy puts government in the role of a convener, verifying and certifying identity providers in a trust framework.

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/nstic-analysis-identity-pri...

The strategy itself:

https://web.archive.org/web/20110415230954/http://www.whiteh...

Kristine Schachinger, in an obituary for Google+, tied that service directly to the NTIS initiative:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-plus-history-deat...

And some previous thoughts of mine:

https://old.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/aa6pmi/a_manhatta...

I'd also had the idea that communications advances undermine social trust dynamics:

Cultures evolve systems (usually religious) to create and foster a sufficiently-reliable trust network.

As communications improve, reliance on that trust diminishes. You no longer need to be able to rely on a person working in your interest for days, or weeks, or months, or years. You can check on them at a moment's notice. You can monitor them continuously, across a wide range of metrics, without their conscious awareness.

A domain built on Trust becomes instead Panopticon.

https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/6jqakv/communi...

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